Growing up, I didn’t really think about whether or not there was a God. Matters of faith weren’t really an issue for me, mostly because I didn’t care. Generally I figured, like so many North Americans, that if there were a God like the one I thought Christians worshipped, he was a jerk who wanted to steal all my fun. I didn’t really know though. And I didn’t know if I could even know.

Like so many, I had bought into the spiritual wisdom of the world—that God (if he exists at all) is unknowable. Despite the protest of those who would say otherwise, you can’t really know him. You can’t know what he’s like, what he cares about or what he expects from us.

And because you can’t know, you don’t really have to worry.

But, again, like so many, I didn’t have an important category: that of revelation. I mean, what if this God who I couldn’t be sure existed, did something wild like told us about himself? And what if we could know about his character and his plans for the world? Wouldn’t that be something?

The good news, of course, is he has done exactly this. And he has done it in the Bible—the 66 books that make up the Old and New Testaments. In this book, we have an actual knowledge of God—and essential to that knowledge is knowing him as Father. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote:

What the Bible, and especially the New Testament, offers us is an actual knowledge of God. We are to know him as our Father. “No man,” says Christ, “cometh unto the Father, but by me.” So I can know God, not as someone who is far away in the distance, of whom I am frightened, a tyrannical someone who is set against me, but I can turn to him and trust him as my Father. “Ye have received the Spirit of adoption,” says the apostle Paul, “whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). In other words, we realize that God loves us with an everlasting love, that he is so concerned about us that the very hairs of our head are all numbered, and that nothing can happen to us apart from God and outside his will.1

This is such good news for us. God wants us to know him. He wants us to know him, in Christ, as our loving heavenly Father… And yet, it’s so easy to forget this, isn’t it? It’s so easy to revert to some other idea about God than what he says about himself.

I was reminded of this when I was trying to comfort my oldest daughter after work recently. Emily texted and let me know that Abigail was distraught because she was sure I was going to be mad that her bicycle’s inner tubes needed to be replaced. She remembered that I had cautioned her against riding her bike with flat tires (as it would risk damaging the rims), but my caution grew in her mind to a fear that I would be angry. She forgot who I am.

“Do I normally get mad about things like this?” I asked her.

“No,” she sniffled.

“That’s right. Although I’m not perfect, I try to be a reasonable person,” I said. “So you don’t need to be upset about this, and you don’t need to be afraid I’ll be angry. Even if you’d been riding on your bike with flat tires, I wouldn’t have been mad. Disappointed, maybe, but not angry.”

And then it started to click. Simply by acknowledging the fact that she knows I’m not someone who acts that way, she was able to see her feelings for what they were—real, but not based in reality.

And this is why we need to be reminded, again and again, of the character of God. This is why we need to continually fight the inclination to not read the Bible. Because even as we are prone to forget the character of our friends and family when fear takes control, we are even more prone to do this with God. We can so easily forget that he is our Father. That he, as Lloyd-Jones put it, “loves us with an everlasting love, that he is so concerned about us that the very hairs of our head are all numbered, and that nothing can happen to us apart from God and outside his will.”

That is the Father we have. That is the Father we can know—the Father who wants us to know him and really know him, through the everlasting love with which he loves us in Jesus Christ. So let’s take every opportunity to know him more.

If you’ve ever shared the gospel with someone, you’ve probably heard this question in response. The idea behind it being, what must I bring to the table to get right with God?

Any time I’ve come to this point in a conversation, I know I’m either at a crossroads or a major roadblock. Even when we tell say there is nothing we can bring to the table, there is no way for us to clear the ledger, even the score, or whatever cliché you prefer, people disconnect. It bounces off of them. I know because it bounced off of me for a long time.

For years, I didn’t get the gospel message. Truth be told, I rarely heard it growing up. But I was pretty sure I had an idea of what Christians were all about: working hard at doing good deeds and spoiling fun for everyone else so they could get right with their God.

Then I became one and found out I was completely wrong. The block for me was a real understanding of my sin—I didn’t realize that sin has as much to do with who we are as what we do. I couldn’t see that it wasn’t actually possible for me to even things out on my own. (I also didn’t care, but that’s a whole different issue.) Fundamentally, I couldn’t grasp the concept that sin was what created a barrier between me and God.

Even as a Christian, it’s easy to forget this. It’s easy to start just encouraging people to live right, or make better choices. It’s easy to treat the problem as a knowledge issue. But it’s so much more than this. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote:

There is only one thing between us and God, and that is our sin. It is not our intellect that separates us from God. The barrier is sin, this barrier that has come in. That is the problem: God is there, and we are here. “Why do I not know him?” asks someone. Because of this barrier. The only way to have it removed is through the Lord Jesus Christ. He came in order to be my sin offering. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself . . . he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:19, 21). There it is—your sin has been laid upon him, it has been dealt with, it is cleared. Believe it, thank God for it, and you will know him as your Father. Christ “is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). “Do you need wisdom?” says Paul in essence to the cultured Greeks. “If you do, go to Christ. He is the wisdom of God; all the necessary truth is in him.” He is the truth.1

The barrier to our reconciliation with God is not simply a knowledge issue. It is our sin. It is this thing that is fundamentally who we are. And this is why the gospel is such good news for all of us. For in coming into this world, Jesus came to remove and destroy the barrier between me and God. He came to take our sin upon himself—to be sin so that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). He came so that we could put an end to our futile striving to earn what can only be given to us—and to help us see and believe the good news for what it is.

What makes us Christians? In one sense, it is as simple as “confess[ing] with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead” (Romans 10:9, HCSB). Confess and believe. That’s about it, at least as far as our response is concerned.

But that’s still not the full answer, since it doesn’t address the bigger issue behind the question of what makes us Christians—is it our merely confession, or is there something else?

There’s not a magic formula, any more than there’s a magic formula to blaspheming the Holy Spirit (despite what the kids on YouTube were doing a few years back). It’s not something you can plan or strategize into happening, though charlatans experts might tell you. It’s not something that you can schedule, despite what revivalism taught so many in the 1950s. It’s something you can earn or purchase or merit, either, despite what false religions and cults will tell you.

The answer is actually a lot simpler—and infinitely more complex–than any we might expect. It’s an answer I’m always thankful for whenever I get up in the morning and realize, “Yep, I actually do love and worship Jesus.” It’s something I’m grateful for whenever I get to read my Bible, when I get to teach kids at our church, and when I get to write a blog post. It’s the answer I’m grateful for, even when I drive past buildings promising a revival at 8:00 next Saturday.

The answer? It’s the Holy Spirit who makes it happen. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains it this way in Revival:

What makes us Christians? The work of regeneration; the Holy Spirit of God doing a work down in the very depths of the personality, and putting there a new principle of life, something absolutely new, so that there is the ‘new man’. Now that, always, is a doctrine that comes out in every period of revival and of reawakening. And that is how you get, invariably at such times, these remarkable and dramatic changes. Men who had been utterly hopeless, and who had been abandoned even by their dearest relatives and friends; men who had even abandoned themselves, feeling that nothing could be done for them, feeling utterly hopeless, feeling rejected of all people and of God: suddenly this work takes place, and they find themselves new creatures with an entirely new outlook on living, and anxious to live a new kind of life. Regeneration. It stands out in the story and in the history of every revival that has ever taken place in the long history of the Christian Church. In other words, everything about a revival emphasises the activity of this sovereign God. He is intervening. He is working. He is doing things. And this is shown very plainly by the results and the effects of the work of regeneration. (57)

Christians can’t be Christians if there is no regeneration—if the Holy Spirit isn’t actively making dead people live, if he’s not breathing new life into those who would believe. This is impossible to schedule, manipulate, or fabricate. We can’t make it happen, no matter how hard we try.

So revival doesn’t start with us. But we can pray that we would see him work among us. That he will bring the dead among us to life. That he will give people the desire to confess with their mouths and believe in their hearts. That he will help us see that, as John puts it in his gospel, all this happens “not of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13, HCSB).

While my American friends and readers are spending today hopefully enjoying a delicious meal, time with loved ones and a football game (if they like such things), the rest of us are doing whatever we normally do on Thursdays. For me, that’s going to work, writing stuff, and making smart aleck-y comments on Twitter. For the college student, it’s going to class. For the homeschooling parent, it’s another day’s lesson.

But holiday or no, there’s no reason for us to not take a moment to be thankful for all God has blessed us with. Indeed, this is something we’re reminded to do at all times and in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:18). And praising God in this way—giving him thanks at all times, in all circumstances, for things big and small—is perhaps one of the best ways for us to truly know him.

As Martyn Lloyd Jones wrote:

If you want to know Him, if you want to know His smile, if you want to know something about this living realization that God is your God and that He has loved you “with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3), that you are His child and that He will never leave you or forsake you (Heb. 13:5)—if you want this living witness of the Spirit, this ultimate assurance that is given through the love shed abroad in our hearts, going upward and back to Him in praise, worship, adoration, and thanksgiving, then begin to praise God for what you have.

Praise Him for everything—for the gifts of life and health and strength. Many people are ill and laid aside and cannot attend a place of worship. Do we thank God for our health and strength, our faculties, for all these gifts that He showers upon us so constantly and so freely? Thank God! David, of course, keeps on repeating this: “Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name … my mouth will praise thee with joyful lips” (Ps. 63:3–5).1

Praise him for everything? Yep. Everything. All the time. Friends, if we feel distant from God, perhaps the best place to start is to look at all he has done for us, and thank him for it. No matter how insignificant it may seem, there is nothing we should not thank him for, praising him perhaps even with joyful lips (Psalm 63:5). For when we do, we may find we begin to truly rejoice in Him.

Logic On Fire, the new documentary on the life and ministry of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, premiered in April at TGC 2015. Westminster Bookstore’s offering the film for $31 until July 30, and free USPS shipping when you purchase two or more.

A pastor will sometimes find himself the recipient of hearsay. What I mean is, he will occasionally receive reports of concerns about his character from anonymous parties delivered by parties willing to deliver them. There are few circumstances in which this might be acceptable. But in general, a pastor facing anonymous criticism will be asked to answer to ghosts. Very few things discourage a pastor more than anonymous criticism. More often than not, a wise pastor will need to say, “If someone is concerned about that, they need to bring it to me personally. As it is, I won’t entertain it.” The wise pastor will then personally consider whether the concerns are valid, anonymously generated or not, and “cling to what is good.” But he is under no obligation to entertain the charges of nobody in particular.

I predict that the blogosphere will continue to grow and thrive. At least, the idea of the blogosphere will grow and thrive. The idea that gave rise to the blogosphere is that it offered people with ideas a voice that circumvented the traditional gatekeepers. Newspaper editors no longer stood between opinions and audiences. Book publishers could no longer determine the authors who would introduce and evaluate the big ideas. Magazines and news shows were no longer the only curators of interesting news and information. That anyone today can have a voice seems normal in 2015, but we forget that fifteen years ago it was a novel idea.

Being with the congregation in the worship service from childhood is one of the greatest privileges that God has given to children growing up in a Christian home. That begs the question, however, “If our young children can’t understand what is being said from the pulpit, why would we keep them in?” Here are five reasons–with a few caveats–about why you should consider keeping your children in the service:

As a Christian I want to practice biblical discernment, privately and publicly. (I even ran my own discernment-style blog for a while.) Few days pass that I’m not writing a challenge to some recent evangelical irritant, right up to and including this very article. However, I want to do so in a way that shows love for people and points above all to Jesus and the gospel.

That’s why I put “discernment” in quotes. I do not challenge biblical discernment. But I do want to challenge quarrelsome discernment: a counterfeit “discernment” that revels in the fight, refuses to listen to others, is careless with the truth, and twists one biblical instruction — to rebuke false teaching — into a chief end of a Christian’s ministry.

Buzzwords make me want to die inside. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about in the business world or ministry world, they are just painful. I cringe every time I hear “strategy” or “strategic” (or worse, “strategic strategies”). I squirm when I hear the term “missional.”

It’s not that these words are bad. But what gets me is how easily they can be bent toward passivity or, worse, theoretical living. I know of lots of folks who talk about the importance of strategy all day long, but it doesn’t go beyond talking about why it matters. We believe it in theory, but actually building one and then following it, that’s something else. I’ve heard dozens of sermons about being missional or reaching the community around us, but it doesn’t really seem to go beyond the hypothetical. We believe in the idea in theory, but when it comes to actually doing something like getting to know our neighbors, oh my goodness.

Now, here’s the thing: For me, I don’t have an “everyone else should do better at this” attitude, because I’m just as bad as everyone else. I live in my head. It’s easy for me to live theoretically, but not move beyond theory. And this won’t do, because, as Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it well in Seeking the Face of God, “People are not interested in something theoretical.”

The thing that always convinces people is reality. If they see there is something about our lives, a certain quality, a certain calmness and equanimity, the ability to be more than conquerors in every kind of circumstance, if they see that when everything is against us, we still triumphantly prevail whereas they do not, they will become interested in what we have. They will want to know more about it. I am convinced, therefore, that the greatest need today is Christian people who know and manifest the fact that they know the living God, to whom His “loving-kindness is better than life.” In other words, nothing is more important than an assurance of salvation. (122)

This is what we’re to be about, isn’t it? We’re to be people whose knowledge and love for the Lord are clearly visible. Who recognize that salvation is truly of grace and live like it’s true. So what does that look like?

It means we quit running around as though we’ve got to do “enough” in order to earn God’s continued love. It means we speak up about our faith with confidence, at the right times and the right ways, not to beat people over the head with the gospel, but because we speak about what we care about. We don’t pretend we’ve got all the answers to every question, because we don’t. And we do our best to be honest about the fact that we’re totally going to blow it on nearly everything I’ve just said. And we can do that because we know that we are secure in the loving-kindness of our Savior.

That’s a little bit of what it looks like to live as something more than a theoretical Christian. And a theoretical Christian is exactly what we must not be. The world doesn’t have time for it, and neither do we.